I have just read the Book Review by Graham W.
Elmes (Antenna, 32: 216) of Charlotte Sleigh's Six Legs
Better - a cultural review of myrmecology. While I hope to catch up
with it ere long, I am assuming that Graham was citing the book when he
wrote how William Morton Wheeler first used the term myrmecology in
1906. I tracked this down to, perhaps, Wheeler's writing of "an
American of somewhat doubtful reputation as a myrmecologist".

Fifty-three years earlier, Gustav Mayr wrote of
"Dr. Nylander, der Gründer der neueren Myrmecologie", i.e. founder of
the new myrmecology. William Nylander had written his "Monographiam
Formicarum Borealum" just a few years earlier (Nylander, 1846). Mayr
himself, in his pioneering paper on "Einige neue Ameisen" (Mayr,
1853), had given some of the first taxonomic descriptions that were
accurate and sufficient enough for the reader to feel assured he could
identify the ant in question. Earlier, Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau
(1835) in a great treatise on Hymenoptera had given quite detailed
descriptions of Formicidae in Vol. I., with excellent drawings in Vol.
VI. Nylander also had given some detailed descriptions but those, like
the rest of his paper, were written in Latin.

Two years later, the now Med. Dr. Gustav L. Mayr wrote the "Formicina
austriaca" (Mayr, 1855). This set the benchmark for all ant
taxonomy, including full taxonomic definitions and, for the first time,
dichotomous keys. The only thing missing, apart from five examples of
wing structure, were drawings. In the "Die Ameisen des baltischen
Bernsteins", there are over 100 accurate, high quality drawings
(Mayr, 1868). Mayr's last ant taxonomy paper was published in 1907. All
this from a man who was a schoolmaster or principal and was never
employed in the Vienna Museum. In the same era, Frederick Smith at the
British Museum was writing minimalist descriptions in the style
unchanged since Fabricius in 1787.

Now we come to Auguste Forel, who as he recorded
in 1922, began publishing in 1869. In 1920, he wrote in his 231st paper
how the glaucoma prevented him from continuing to describe ants. His
first major ant work was his 1874, "Les Fourmis de la Suisse",
in which he expressed his admiration for the works of Mayr and related
how he adopted Mayr's methods for the analytical tables. In a curious
move, Forel noted how it was contrary to reproach Mayr for "la trop
grande multiplication des genres". In his short biography of Forel's
hyperproductive protégé, Felix Santschi, Wehner noted how all eminent
myrmecologists before Forel (1874) had strictly used binomials (Wehner,
1990). Forel introduced the deliberate splitting of species into
subspecies and variations, although he used the term "race" and
Santschi used "stirps" for these lower levels. Forel himself said that
he used "races" for species that were badly determined or showed
transitions between them, one could also call them "sub-species".
Seemingly he felt this would be helpful for dealing with intermediate
or aberrant forms. The difficulties this system imposed were summed up
by André (1881) "with the ants the separation of species presents
great difficulties, and nothing is harder than to decide where the
species ends and the variety commences". This muddled and muddling
thinking prevailed for the next 80 years. Its legacy still makes it
difficult for any one trying to sort out field collections and to
evaluate variations in behaviour, etc. Many of Forel's taxonomic
descriptions were quite brief, often based on comparisons with other
species (thus assuming the reader had access to the earlier
publications) and very rarely had illustrations. He did not produce any
comparative works or keys. Thus, I would not rank Forel as one of the
three greatest "ant men".

My digging for this note threw up some minor
nuggets. From Forel (1886), one was that he used a Hartnack microscope,
with objective systems 9, 7, etc. Another was his note that Latreille
had the habit of attributing ants with darker colours than those of
Mayr and later authors. Thus Latreille used black for ants he, Forel,
and others would call brown, and, "marron" (chestnut) or "marron clair"
for "rousses" or "roux un peu jaunâtre", etc. Since studying the role
ants played in the dissemination of the cocoa black pod disease in
Nigeria, I have often wondered where the term ant tent came from and
who first used it. Wheeler (1905) gave up an answer - Couper, 1863,
Remarks on Tent-building ants. Proc. Entomol. Soc. Phila. Feb.
1863, 273-274, wrote of "An ant .. that constructs a kind of papier-mâché
tent over Aphides, parasitic on a species of Alder".

Biographical note. Gustav L. Mayr, b. October 12,
1830; d. July 7, 1908 in Rozzano (close to Milan:). In 1863-1882 he was
appointed as a college teacher ("Realschul-Professor") in Vienna
and worked up to 1892 in collaboration with the Museum of Natural
History (at that time "k.k. Hof-Cabinet"), but was not appointed
to the Museum. In 1894 he was honoured by the title of a "Kaiserlicher
Rat" ("Imperial Councillor"). Some of his collection is deposited
in the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Austria (NHMW) and some is in the
Staatliches Museum: für Tierkunde, Dresden (SMTD). (With thanks to Prof
Luitfried v. S.-Plawen for information).